NCEPR: low-carb diet headaches

[laurenpetro]

i started a doctor-supervised low cal, low carb diet yesterday. the food sucks but i can choke it down (especially when it's covered in peanut butter and/or chocolate) but the headaches just kicked in hard.

any recs? advil/tylenol/asprin tend to shred up my stomach so i try to avoid those if i can.

is it just a matter of powering through a couple of days?

[mimosas]

After day four of low carb I'm usually back to mostly normal and the headaches go away by then. Also drink a ton of water. Like, almost an uncomfortable amount. That helps me too.

[MrsDL]

Did you give up on caffeine at the same time (like South Beach recommends?). That makes it a bazillion times worse and if you are nixing it too, I would wait until the carb withdrawls stop. I found that within 2 weeks of doing the low-carb thing, the headaches stopped. That didn't keep me from wanting to hijack a Wonderbread delivery truck though............

[wrathofkuus]

The headache is your body's way of telling you to stop being crazy and eat like a normal damn person.

[ringstrue]

It really depends what you are doing in place of carbs. If you are raising your sugar (hence the pb and chocolate) and not uping "fillers" like protein or fats or fiber at all, you could be messing with your blood sugar too much. and ditto the caffeine thing.

The only times I can really nip later day eating troubles with headaches and hunger is to eat a bigger breakfast that includes 2 eggs and is really low in sugar. Its not the tastiest breakfast in the world but the rest of the day goes a lot smoother.

[GailGoldie]

what is a low cal low carb diet?? because most low carb diets don't worry about calories.. just carbs.

and if you are eating anything with chocolate on it- it's either not low carb- or it's full of fake sugar alchols which will usually make you shit like you've taken a laxitive... I would avoid all "frankenfoods" especially early on in any low carb diet.

Generally after the first few days you should feel great (on a typical low carb diet... again, have no idea what is low cal/carb). I get much less headaches when i am eating low carb.... but the first couple days can be hard.

and as someone else said- caffiene withdrawl is horrrible for headaches- so if that is your problem have some tea or something.

you can take a prevacid or other PPI with advil, etc - to help your stomach. Prevacid is actually approved for reduction of NSAID associated gastric ulcer - nsaids can ruin the protective nature of your stomach against stomach acids - so reducing the stomach acids help a ton if you are taking any NSAIDS.

[emmybean]

Aug 14, 2012 10:29:13 GMT -5 wrathofkuus said:

The headache is your body's way of telling you to stop being crazy and eat like a normal damn person.

Yup.

I am militantly anti-any low _______ diet. Eat real food, not shit you have to slather with peanut butter to choke down.

Wait, and chocolate?!

I can't. I just.... I can't.

Go eat a sandwich. On whole grain bread. With turkey. And lettuce and tomato. And a slice of cheese. That's how to solve you headache.

[GailGoldie]

and i don't get why the food sucks? Full fat cheese = wonderful... steak? chicken? bacon? eggs? love. Salads + veggies? yum.

what on earth does this doc have you eating?

[laurenpetro]

there is no way on god's green earth that i would ever go on a diet that would require me giving up coffee. ever. the last time i went caffine-free was when i was PG with the boys and that was only because caffine induced my morning sickness.

and kus, i suspect the headaches are my body's way of protesting the fact that i've gotten it used to completely shit food for the past 36 years. not that what i'm eating right now is much better but i don't have the shakes like i do after i eat the amount of carbs that i'm used to, and i haven't carb-crashed yet either which is a novel experience.

thanks for the heads up about prevacid, gail. i'd never heard that before (but then again, isn't this what you do? lol) i'll run to CVS at lunch and pick some up.

[laurenpetro]

it's basically a nutri-system type thing, but i'm being monitored because we suspect that i have thyroid issues to deal with at the same time. i have to go back for more bloodwork on that next week. i'm a hot fucking mess these days.

[emilyj]

Most headaches like this get triggered by cutting out caffeine or sugar...so if you've cut out one or both of these things (coffee, sodas?) then it's pretty much a matter of powering through.

Drink a lot of water to keep yourself hydrated - that will help.

[GailGoldie]

oooh... so some prepackaged type stuff- yeah, most of that sucks ass. Typical low carb diets are great b/c they are real foods - nothing low fat, etc.

and ditto on staying hydrated - going low carb usually makes you lose a lot of fluid early on - you'll probably pee more... so make sure to add back in a lot of water.

[emilyj]

If it's pre-packaged, nutrisystem type stuff, then I suspect that it might have a high sodium content in it, which might not be helping the headaches.

Water. Drink a lot of water.

I'm sorry you're going through this. I hope they can figure out what's going on quickly for you.

[laurenpetro]

Aug 14, 2012 10:50:40 GMT -5 GailGoldie said:

oooh... so some prepackaged type stuff- yeah, most of that sucks ass. Typical low carb diets are great b/c they are real foods - nothing low fat, etc.

and ditto on staying hudrated - going low carb usually makes you lose a lot of fluid early on - you'll probably pee more... so make sure to add back in a lot of water.

yeah, i'm not thrilled with it on many levels. at least they encourage a shitton of veggies (which, i was eating anyway, so i don't feel so bad about that.) i know a bunch of people who have done this one before with great success and have kept it off for years but none mentioned these raging headaches.

plus my doctor is HOT, so any "maintenence" i have to do through with this requires regular check-ins with him. bonus!

[msmerymac]

Not sure about the low carb, but low cal always makes my body think it's out of energy. Try to sleep more, which will help the headache. Your body needs to recharge either through calories or sleep, so if you can't have one...

[lilmgirl]

When I started my clean eating, low carb diet, I had a massive headache for a couple of days. It sucked.